Mexico – The New Politicalhttps://thenewpolitical.com
An Independent Voice for Athens.Fri, 13 Sep 2019 18:49:31 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.11OPINION: America needs to act on the immigration crisishttps://thenewpolitical.com/2018/12/04/opinion-america-needs-to-act-on-the-immigration-crisis/
https://thenewpolitical.com/2018/12/04/opinion-america-needs-to-act-on-the-immigration-crisis/#respondTue, 04 Dec 2018 12:45:04 +0000https://thenewpolitical.com/?p=23073Opinion writer Azavieria Payne argues America needs to develop a strong, humane strategy to manage the immigration crisis on the Mexican-American border. We’re two years into Donald Trump’s presidency, and things at the border still have not cooled down. After campaigning on the premise of building a wall and having Mexico pay for it, Trump has …

We’re two years into Donald Trump’s presidency, and things at the border still have not cooled down. After campaigning on the premise of building a wall and having Mexico pay for it, Trump has had the challenge of controlling tensions surrounding America’s Mexican border.

Since his campaign, Trump has been under scrutiny for his outspoken views regarding immigrants and the harsh treatment they have received at the border under his presidency. This year, Trump ordered troops to the border after news broke of a migrant caravan from Honduras heading towards the U.S, and from there it has only gotten worse. Prior to the troops being sent to the border, there was an extreme backlash to the separation of children from their parents at the border.

The separation of children from their parents at the border is cruel and unusual. It is reprehensible to allow children to be taken from their parents in a country that is not their own. Children should be kept with their parents in order to ensure their safety, and allow them familiarity in an unknown environment.

Illegal immigration is a widely discussed debate in American politics, but a widespread debate has sparked no real solution to the issue. The controversy to illegal immigration is those seeking asylum.

By international law, the United States has a legal obligation to provide protection for those who qualify as refugees. But, according to the American Immigration Council, “Noncitizens who are encountered by, or present themselves to, a U.S. official at a port of entry or near the border are subject to expedited removal, an accelerated process which authorizes DHS to perform rapid deportations of certain individuals.”

Although Trump has faced backlash for sending troops to the border, it is not illegal and he is not the first president to do so.

On Nov. 25, U.S border agents fired tear gas on hundreds of migrants protesting near the border. This act will only escalate hostilities between migrants and border officials and it created outrage within the American public.

The tear gassing is only the first act of violence toward migrants at the border, but there is a strong possibility that things can escalate further. These migrants are fleeing their home countries in an attempt to escape violence, only to be met with violence at the border. It is important that Congress develops a solution to this migrant crisis and a comprehensive approach to immigration as a whole.

For border control alone, the U.S has spent roughly $263 billion. While it is important to ensure the safety of Americans by securing the border, a portion of the money spent to secure the border should be used elsewhere. A solution to this migrant crisis is to analyze the situation at hand; we must focus on the reasons why migrants are fleeing their home countries.

]]>https://thenewpolitical.com/2018/12/04/opinion-america-needs-to-act-on-the-immigration-crisis/feed/0The Nature of Beadshttps://thenewpolitical.com/2017/01/26/the-nature-of-beads/
https://thenewpolitical.com/2017/01/26/the-nature-of-beads/#respondFri, 27 Jan 2017 02:19:50 +0000http://thenewpolitical.com/?p=19403Two tourists wandered along a working class street in Cuzco, Peru, aided only by a map and the occasional stranger’s help. What had started as a visit to a museum for Jo Merkle and Phil Berry of Athens, Ohio, turned into an impromptu adventure. The bounty they were after: beads. The museum had held a …

]]>Two tourists wandered along a working class street in Cuzco, Peru, aided only by a map and the occasional stranger’s help. What had started as a visit to a museum for Jo Merkle and Phil Berry of Athens, Ohio, turned into an impromptu adventure. The bounty they were after: beads. The museum had held a few they had liked, and the display included the artist’s name and address. So Merkle copied them down. Their wandering brought them away from the tourist part of Mexico, but they found the artist’s workshop. Some of those beads still lie in their Athens store.

The little red house lingers behind the cracking sidewalk of North Shafer Street, a pink sign proclaiming it: Beads & Things. Inside, crystals hang from window sills, casting rainbows across the wooden floor. A portrait of beads, a gift from past employees, hangs on a window toward the back of the shop. Small baskets of gemstones line the front wall, and glass jars hold handfuls of feathers from exotic birds.

Beads color the rest of the room, adorning shelf and tables in small jars and hanging from windows in long strands. The vibrant colors brighten the first floor of the house while statues, carvings and large gems adorn the staircase that leads up to Merkle and Berry’s upstairs apartment. The couple lives here when they aren’t at their cabin outside of town. When they aren’t in Athens, they’re usually traveling around the world in search of new people to meet and things to sell.

Phil Barry and Jo Merkle fill their Athens, Ohio, store with beads from all over the world. Photo by Adriana Navarro

For Merkle, her quest for beads has been a lifelong affair. Her mother introduced her to the hobby as a child; by the third grade, she had a collection. By the fourth grade, she had a business.

“I kind of had some manufacturing problems, though,” Merkle says, Berry laughing as he listens. Her little start-up selling handmade badges didn’t last long, but Beads & Things has shared its treasures with Athens since 1990, despite initial struggles — apart from the house and Merkle’s bead collection, the couple had little money.

“I told her that I would help her, kind of do some carpentry and help her get things, but I wasn’t going to work here.” Berry says. A tall man with spectacles and silver hair that matches his wife’s, Berry doesn’t seem the type to be making beads, if there is one.

“Famous last words,” Merkle says with a smirk.

She was correct. Within two months, Berry was making jewelry. Within six, he was working full-time.

Now in her 26th year as store owner, Merkle doesn’t have just a collection of beads, but also a collection of knowledge. The shop is a library of different cultures, beads instead of books. Berry picks up a strand of tradewind beads, which he estimates are from the 1500s.

Because makers used the same materials and the same practices for centuries, it’s often difficult to determine the time of manufacturing. Even so, beads from archeologist sites can help to “to judge the advancement of a culture technologically or their connections between other places, other cultures, other people,” according to Berry.

“Maybe it’s the way that the different cultures express their connection to something deeper…all cultures have that. They express themselves somehow or another,” Berry says.

These beads Merkle and Berry collect hold those expressions down to their very name.

“The word ‘bead’ means ‘to pray’ in Anglo-Saxon, so these are all little prayers. Little pieces of art,” Merkle says, the reason being that prayer beads were the first type the common people could afford.

As precious as their treasures and the knowledge they impart are, it’s the people they meet and make connections with, locally and around the world, who Merkle and Berry value most. Through their quest for beads, they observe human nature across the world.

“I mean, 99.999 percent of the people on this planet are really great. We hear the percentage of happenings that aren’t so great,” Merkle says genuinely as she sits at a table across from her husband, a table of colorful beads in small glass bowls between them.

Together, they recount a particular striking example. On a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, the couple encountered a teacher’s rally that tangled with the local law enforcement. Before they were pulled into a nearby office building, Berry remembers seeing pots along the street, waiting to be planted. When they emerged after the rally, “those plants were still there, waiting to be planted.”

“Nobody hurt the plants. There were some stones thrown and a building that got messed up, but nobody hurt the plants. I thought that was really human,” Merkle adds.

Berry jokes that no sooner than the couple would travel somewhere, that country would experience some form of “political disturbance.” While they had been in Thailand during March of 2010, there had been some demonstrations by red shirts, or supporters of a political pressure group called The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship.

“Oh, well that was a long time ago,” Merkle says dismissively, the two chuckling.

“My sister started to say, ‘What are you really doing in these countries?’” Berry adds.

In 2011, the political rifts actually aided the couple in their travel. An October trip to Beijing brought wonder, and November brought an opportunity. According to Berry, the Chinese government changed rules regarding travel to Tibet without giving much reason for doing so.

The new regulations China allowed tour groups to visit Tibet with a guide, but the couple discovered an additional loophole. Merkle and Berry were able to classify as their own tour group, rather than traveling in a larger group. They stayed in Tibet for four or five days, touring with their guide.

“He didn’t show us anything at first, but by the time we left, it was fairly obvious to us that he wasn’t happy with the Chinese presence being the level that it was.” Berry said.

If the Tibetan tour guide was subtle, the Chinese military presence was anything but. Chinese police stood on the roofs, watching the citizens — and the foreigners — below.

The couple usually stayed out late at night, exploring before returning to their room on the highest floor. A few seconds after they shut their door, they’d hear footsteps sounded overhead on the roof. Military boots descended down stairs, then down the hall.

Click.

They tried the door. Locked.

“It was to keep us in so we wouldn’t be instigators to some type of problem,” Merkle said, certain that was the reason rather than the couple’s safety. According to the two, it was common practice at the “foreigner hotels” to lock the guests in their rooms at night.

“You would see the military on the roofs, the police on the roof, you’d see them. But I didn’t realize ‘well, they’re on our roof too,” said Merkle.

After returning to Beijing, the government changed the rules on traveling to Tibet yet again.

“You had to either be in a bigger group, and not longer after that they changed it that you had to be of the same nationality,” said Berry.

Their travels brought them to Ephesus, Turkey; Cusco, Peru; Morocco, Tasco, Kansas and Oaxaca, Mexico; Tucson, Arizona; Beijing, China and others. In the coming year, the couple plan on traveling to Guatemala. One adventure leads to another. But the more they travel, the world doesn’t get smaller. It grows.

]]>https://thenewpolitical.com/2017/01/26/the-nature-of-beads/feed/0Opinion: Obama’s trip to Cuba should be applaudedhttps://thenewpolitical.com/2016/03/23/opinion-obamas-trip-to-cuba-should-be-applauded/
https://thenewpolitical.com/2016/03/23/opinion-obamas-trip-to-cuba-should-be-applauded/#respondWed, 23 Mar 2016 05:02:55 +0000http://thenewpolitical.com/?p=16949While Donald Trump is burning bridges with Mexico in an attempt to force them to pay for a wall, President Barack Obama is trying to restore a broken relationship with Cuba. Obama is the first U.S. president to visit communist Cuba since 1959, according to CNN. While many people discuss the Islamic State Group as …

]]>While Donald Trump is burning bridges with Mexico in an attempt to force them to pay for a wall, President Barack Obama is trying to restore a broken relationship with Cuba.

Obama is the first U.S. president to visit communist Cuba since 1959, according to CNN. While many people discuss the Islamic State Group as being a threat to the United States, it is important to remember the Cold War and the threat Cuba once posed. Foreign policy is a concept that arguably neither political party has learned to master.

However, as the old cliché goes, ”treat others the way you would want to be treated.” This sign of outreach to the Cuban people this week was an extraordinary action by Obama. This is how we, as Americans, should handle foreign policy. This does not mean we should let people walk all over us. This simply means sometimes it is better to make friends than enemies.

Let’s be real, many countries do not like the U.S., and we ourselves do not like other countries. I am not saying Obama needs to have brunch with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. I am saying it is time for the U.S. to try to make peace with the world. We present more of a threat to our national security when we threaten war or try to invade or overpower others.

Following attacks in Brussels yesterday, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump declared further support for waterboarding. This is just silly. I have broken down the topic of waterboarding once before in a previous column. However, how are we any better as individuals when we torture others? People like Trump are part of the reason why America is so hated by so many other countries. How can we present ourselves as the land of the free when we torture others? Hate speech will get this country nowhere. Many have criticized the president for venturing into Cuba, but that is what leaders have to do. They have to talk with enemies.

Fox News columnist Mercedes Schlapp shamed Obama and said he is basically wasting his time.

“The president’s utopian mentality fails to align itself with the realities of a system and government that has suffocated the freedoms of the Cuban people for decades,” Schlapp said.

Obama did not praise Cuba, though. He spoke about numerous things that need to be fixed in the communist state.

Obama explained to Cuban President Raúl Castro that he should “need not fear the different voices of the Cuban people — and their capacity to speak, and assemble, and vote for their leaders.”

People listen more to others when they are not being yelled at. IS is an alarming issue to the U.S. However, we cannot go around threatening war. Where would we even attack IS? We have no real clue where its members are. Some IS members are in our country, some are in parts of the Middle East while other are in Europe. We cannot threaten to bomb everyone. What we can do is work with other countries to hopefully build bridges instead of walls.

]]>https://thenewpolitical.com/2016/03/23/opinion-obamas-trip-to-cuba-should-be-applauded/feed/0Featured Blog: Pope Francis failed to properly address disappearances in trip to Mexicohttps://thenewpolitical.com/2016/02/24/featured-blog-pope-francis-failed-to-properly-address-disappearances-in-trip-to-mexico/
https://thenewpolitical.com/2016/02/24/featured-blog-pope-francis-failed-to-properly-address-disappearances-in-trip-to-mexico/#respondWed, 24 Feb 2016 05:44:14 +0000http://thenewpolitical.com/?p=16738In late 2014, 43 students at a Mexican teacher’s college disappeared. Since then, their families have been fighting for justice in this case, which has become a symbol of the larger issue of disappearances across Mexico. With the pope’s visit to the nation between Feb. 12 and 17, many were hoping he would shine a …

]]>In late 2014,43 students at a Mexican teacher’s college disappeared. Since then, their families have been fighting for justice in this case, which has become a symbol of the larger issue of disappearances across Mexico. With the pope’s visit to the nation between Feb. 12 and 17, many were hoping he would shine a light on theinjustices occurring in Mexico, especially in regards to this symbolic case.

Pope Francis has been a particularly outspoken pope on many occasions. Just think about his recent statements onbirth control for Catholic women in Zika-stricken countries andDonald Trump’s immigration policies. He is political and poignant in his choices, and his recent trip to Mexico was no different.

Democratic and fair elections in 2000 didn’t solve the ongoing issues with bureaucracy that Mexico had been fighting during the previous one-party rule by the PRI. Over 20,000 people have gone missing in Mexico, and according to Amnesty International almost half of that number has disappeared since 2012 when Enrique Peña Nieto became president. The disappearances have coincided with an increased crackdown on journalists’ rights to free speech. Narco-trafficking (narcotics trafficking), immigration and human rights violations are real issues for the Mexican government, and Pope Francis’ trip to the country brought light to this. He discussed immigration, where he said building a wall between Mexico and the U.S. was not Christian, and narco-trafficking’s effects on the society.

The pope’s recognition of Mexico’s human rights issues could be seen in his choice to visit some of the poorest regions of the country, which have also had the largest struggle with violence. His speeches pointed out these problems as well, but here it was far less overtly critical of the Mexican government or their responses to the disappearances than some Mexicans had been hoping for.

The 43 students from a teacher’s college who disappeared from their town after a protest have not been seen again. The government concluded its investigation claiming that a drug cartel or paramilitary group in the area had kidnapped, murdered and burned the bodies of the 43 in a trash dump nearby. This was recently determined false after anArgentine forensic anthropology team gave a second opinion on the bone fragments and stated that they could not have belonged to the student victims. The case is still open, and significant questions have arisen about what really happened to the students and how much the government is hiding.

The families have been suggesting that the government troops in the area at the time of the abduction must be questioned by impartial investigators, but so far these soldiers have only been questioned by the government investigator from the original investigation. It is unlikely that the government will allow another party to interview these soldiers or view any of the otherrelevant material that is being discovered.

Although the Argentine report that discredited the government findings was released only days before Pope Francis visited Mexico, his speeches and meetings noticeably missed any direct discussion of these disappearances. He met with parents of other missing people, butnone of the 43 students’ families. As consolation, the families were offeredthree seats at one of the pope’s masses, which they refused. The pope, much to the dismay of these families, met with government officials including Peña Nieto instead of meeting with those campaigning against them.

The choices Pope Francis made to visit and speak with whom, when and where he did have been highly critiqued, but they have also been supported as an attempt to point out the problems of the Mexican government. The Bishop of Saltillo said, “There are some political situations that the Vatican and he, as the Head of State, have to be careful of: He didn’t say disappearances, but he did say they take your loved ones. He did talk about it, but he didn’t use the certain terms he couldn’t use.”

The disappearances in Mexico are rarely discussed in American media. A few years ago, there was a spike in news stories covering the violence in Mexico, but that has since dropped off to almost nothing. The contrast to Mexican news sources is incredible; most of them prominently feature the violence in their stories and on their pages. Leaving out any discussion of this violence also has an impact on the American immigration debate. Economics are not the only reason someone would leave Mexico; the search for a better life is not always about a better job. It can be about simply feeling safe in your own country and your own home.

This makes you think. If more people knew about the impunity, corruption and violence going on in Mexico today, would they be willing to pressure the Mexican government and the innumerable others that have forcibly disappeared over 20,000 people in Mexico?

Junior Annie Chester and Junior Alena Klimas also contribute to this featured blog, “Critical International Media Perspectives.”

]]>https://thenewpolitical.com/2016/02/24/featured-blog-pope-francis-failed-to-properly-address-disappearances-in-trip-to-mexico/feed/0Opinion: Ban on license for undocumented immigrants is necessaryhttps://thenewpolitical.com/2013/09/19/opinion-ban-on-license-for-undocumented-immigrants-is-necessary/
https://thenewpolitical.com/2013/09/19/opinion-ban-on-license-for-undocumented-immigrants-is-necessary/#respondThu, 19 Sep 2013 23:07:55 +0000http://thenewpolitical.com/?p=7900Illegal immigration has always been a hot topic in politics over the past decade. The Southwestern region of the country has been taking action to limit the amount of illegal immigrants and the benefits they are allowed to have or access. Now, Arizona has decided to expand its driver’s license ban from only undocumented workers …

]]>Illegal immigration has always been a hot topic in politics over the past decade. The Southwestern region of the country has been taking action to limit the amount of illegal immigrants and the benefits they are allowed to have or access. Now, Arizona has decided to expand its driver’s license ban from only undocumented workers to all undocumented immigrants that were granted legal status by President Barack Obama in his Deferred Action Act.

This new extension on the ban was announced on Sept. 17 in a court filing of a lawsuit between the state of Arizona and the American Civil Liberties Union. Andrew Wilder, a spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer, said, “Recipients of regular deferred action and deferred enforced departure, similar to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), cannot demonstrate authorized presence under federal law.” Only one other state, Nebraska, has openly said that they would create a law similar to Arizona’s current and updated ban.

This ban seems a bit drastic; however, it also seems necessary. It is necessary because it will diminish the amount of access that illegal immigrants have to social benefits in the States. However, it is also a bit drastic, because it limits the employment opportunities for the illegal immigrants. Whether people like it or not, illegal immigrants will take the jobs that an American citizen will not even consider and do the job well.

This ban is not what should be on the minds of politicians. Immigration is one of the main problems that has been pushed to the side so employment and the national debt can be solved first. It is understandable that this ban is in a state that is on the Mexico-United States border, but the state should be worried about finding a way to decrease the 7.8 percent unemployment rate. Immigration can wait; take care of the current problems before moving on to another one.